While Short Eyes slept the night away, de Vries hunted. This nights hunt was just part of the long hunt, the kind that required months of tracking, preparation, and that would culminate in violence and death.
Short Eyes was one of only a few humans who understood his hunt. But de Vries had a feeling about this other one, this stripper who looked so much like Josephine. He wanted to believe she would be another, even if it was only to help retrieve the one she loved.
From across the street, he watched her exit The Joy Club. He crouched on the roof of The Headlight Factory, just behind a monstrous set of neon breasts. De Vries took in the sight of her and found himself forgetting to breathe.
With a sharp intake of smog-laden air, he tracked her as she walked through the early evening heat. it was Josephine, and yet it was not. He trembled slightly at the proud way she tossed her head not letting the heat humble her as it did the other denizens of the district.
She walked through the others like a princess among her subjects. Her see-through plastic micro that clearly showed the hot-pink g-string underneath, her azure blouse that left nothing to the imagination, showing perfect little breasts that swayed naturally-no augmentation there. These things were not Josephine. No, Josephine would never have worn those clothes even in the privacy of their home, let alone out on the Street. Also, this girl was muscular where Josephine had been frail.
Still, the tilt of her head, her grace as she dodged the press of foot traffic, these things were Josephine through and through.
He watched her strut, the tips of her stiletto heels dragging sparks from the concrete, her open sexuality taunting those she encountered to do anything other than look, then cast their gaze back down to the filthy pavement.
De Vries knew that this section of downtown was controlled by the yakuza, and considered “safe.” Patrols of yak kumi-in kept the streets free of gangs and organized violence, but that wouldn’t stop sex-starved, drunk corporate slots from attacking a barely clad stripper on her way home.
De Vries knew where she was going, knew it as he knew that she was aroused. The scent of her came to him, strong enough to overcome even the stench of the streets, and he knew she was headed toward Warren’s doss. It was only five blocks over, though a dangerous five blocks. Still, she walked without fear, almost as if daring anyone to accost her.
De Vries knew what she would find when she got to Warren’s, however. He thought about the night he returned home to find Josephine gone, to find that she had been taken by a dark one. He remembered the sense of void and loss as he searched for her.
As he watched Rachel swagger down the Street, he decided to spare her that pain, even if it meant revealing things she might not want to know.
Silent as a wraith, he crept along the building tops, trailing her, gliding from rooftop to rooftop as she crossed the streets. Finally she turned down the one leading to Warren’s doss. Here the shadows would make her more cautious, but would give him the cover he needed before revealing himself.
Still, he found himself hesitating.
Then he smiled to himself in the darkness. He was the vampire, and a caster of spells, yet this mortal creature had captured him with a spell far more powerful than any magic at his own disposal.
He took a deep breath, pulled a pack of Platinum Selects from his pocket and gently swooped to the ground, almost half a block in front of her, just meters from Warren’s front door.
De Vries watched her approach, only remembering his cigarette when she was close enough for him to catch her scent. The scent of roses.
She flinched a little when he touched flame to his smoke, but didn’t pause in her stride.
“Miss Harlan, a moment of your time?”
She kept on walking, and only someone whose eyes were bred to the dark, as his were, would have caught the slight lengthening of her stride, the defensive swing of her arms.
“Rachel?”
“Frag off.” Her tone was a quiet rasp, no fear, no anger, just the words. spoken with enough edge to give a normal human pause.
He smiled to himself again, knowing that Josephine would never use that kind of language but then again, Josephine had been sheltered from the dark, dangerous world this beautiful creature took for granted.
“He’s not home.”
She passed him by. the subtle shift of her stride the only indication that she was attempting to place herself outside the edge of his grasp. If he had been a normal human, she would have succeeded nicely.
He made no move. “Miss Harlan, please. You won’t find him there, and we need to talk. There is much you don’t know, and if Warren is to survive what’s going to happen, there’s not a moment to waste.”
Without warning, she spun on him, a heavy Seco LD-120 pistol emerging from her purse.
Her aggressive stance caught de Vries off guard. “Back off,” she said.
Her hand was going for something else in her purse, and de Vries recognized the shape of a screamer alarm.
If she sets that thing off the yaks will be here any minute. He needed more time than that.
He stepped to the side, too fast for her to track. She didn’t shoot, though she shifted her stance, trying to keep her aim.
De Vries pulled the electronic screamer from her hand before her finger could touch the button.
Rachel spun around again, trying to find her elusive assailant. When she found him again, her eyes locked onto his face. Whatever went through her mind, it only lasted an instant. The next moment her decision was made.
She raced toward Warren’s doss.
De Vries’ smile turned into a full-fledged grin of admiration, watching the line of her back, that rapid undulation of her buttocks, the way she managed to get up so much speed. wearing heels. That was the part that made him smile.
De Vries let her make it to the stairs, then up to the door, which she was trying, vainly, to unlock. Then he spoke a word. The birthplace of that word had died thousands of years before, in a tiny little village just north of what would one day be Pompeii, but he spoke it now, and felt the cool fire build in his back and in his arms.
Time dilated, and Rachel seemed to slow until she looked more like a waxen figure than a human, and the sounds of traffic faded to a dull wash of lazy noise. De Vries moved.
When he was a step or so behind her, he let his body slow down, and Rachel resumed her pounding on the door.
“Miss Harlan, I told you, he’s not here and his father has changed the locks on the door. Your key won’t work, and if you keep pounding you’ll only attract the wrong kind of attention.”
Rachel turned quickly, pressing her back to the door. Her eyes moved quickly to the left and the right, judging her options.
De Vries saw the look of quiet acceptance as she realized she had no options, not even the ghost of an option.
“Who are you, and what do you want?” Her voice was breathy, but the note of resignation it carried made de Vries sad. Such a beautiful creature, such strength, but with an air of fatality that made her seem tragic at the same time.
De Vries took a step back. “Miss Harlan, my name is Martin de Vries, and I know what has happened to Warren. You and I need to talk.”
A look of deep suspicion took its place on her fine-boned features. “What have you done to Warren?”
De Vries smiled. “I have done nothing to him. But I know what will happen to him if I don’t help him. All I’m asking for is a moment of your time.”
Rachel shook her head. “Why would anyone want to harm Warren? He hasn’t done anything.”
De Vries laughed. “Of course he hasn’t. People want to do things to him because of who he is, not because of what he does.”
Again, her eyes shifted from the left to the right. “You’re crazy. Warren is a good guy who spends all his time trying to be an artist. Why would anyone want to hurt him for that?”
Suddenly it dawned on de Vries. “You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
De Vries let
a slow, tired laugh escape his lips. “I should have guessed. You have no clue who Warren D’imato really is.”
Rachel began to slowly edge to the left, and her intentions were clear to de Vries. If she could vault the low railing, she could hit the street running, maybe get away. “Now I know you’re crazy. Warren’s last name is Storey, not D’imato.”
De Vries shook his head. “Miss Harlan. First off, let me clear up something for you. Even if you could jump over the rail without breaking an ankle in those shoes, it would be a simple task for me to catch you before you took more than a step. I suggest we go inside before others take too much of an interest in this meeting.”
Rachel laughed, and it was a rasping, ugly sound. “Yeah, right. Even if I could open the door, you think I’m insane? You get me in there, and I’m never coming out alive.”
De Vries moved again, faster than the normal eye could follow, and he watched as Rachel stifled a scream when he seemed to suddenly appear, his nose just millimeters from her own. She shrank back against the door as if she were trying to worm her way through its molecules.
“Believe me, Miss Harlan, if harming you had been my intention, you would never have seen me, and my breathing as I drained the life out of you would have been the last sound you ever heard. I don’t mean to frighten you, but time is very short, and there is much you need to know.”
De Vries reached out with his left hand and stroked the new lock on the door. Once, twice, and on the third pass, he felt the lock give way. The door swung inward, and Rachel would have fallen to the floor if de Vries hadn’t caught her.
He picked her up gingerly, and walked her into the doss, gently kicking the door closed behind him. He set her on the futon, then thumbed the switch for the small lamp on the work table.
He turned and Rachel gasped. “What… what are you?” De Vries smiled, feeling his curved incisors dimpling his bottom lip. “I think you know exactly what I am, Miss Harlan, but for now, what you must understand is that I am the only friend you have in the world. The only person who is in a position to help Warren.”
Rachel struggled to sit upright, and after a moment she made it. “What is going on?”
De Vries opened his duster and pulled out his pack of Selects. He offered her one, and she took it with a trembling hand. He lit it for her and then one for himself. Taking a deep drag, he let the smoke drift out of his nostrils. “Let’s take things one step at a time. If I had known your ignorance of even the basic facts involved in your situation, I might have approached you somewhat differently, but there you have it.”
Rachel looked at the cigarette in her hand as if she couldn’t remember how it had gotten there. Finally, she put it to her lips and took a long pull, holding the smoke as if it was the very air of life in her lungs. Finally she exhaled, and when she spoke, her voice had calmed considerably. “All right, I don’t accept this, but because this is my delusional episode, I’ll play along. You’re a vampire. Am I correct in assuming that?”
De Vries smiled and nodded.
“Okay, now that I’m sure I’ve fallen over the deep end, just go ahead and lay it on me. What have you got to do with Warren, and why did you call him by the wrong name?”
De Vries was silent for a moment. “Miss Harlan, there are things I wish I could spare you, but I want you to listen to everything I have to say and to keep an open mind. The man you know as Warren Storey, a very talented artist, is actually Warren D’imato, and he is something else entirely.”
Rachel sighed. “Why would he lie?”
Once again, de Vries was surprised. “You aren’t familiar with the name D’imato?”
She shrugged. “Should I be?”
De Vries sat next to her and was impressed when she didn’t shrink away from him. “This is going to seem a bit far-fetched to you, but your Warren is a very rich man and the son of a powerful corporate honcho. He is also the nephew of Marco D’imato, who is head of the D’imato family. The D’imatos are sole owners of Fratellanza, Inc., a provider of private security in Seattle and other cities across UCAS. They’re not Knight Errant by any stretch of the imagination. but that hasn’t prevented them from making Fratellanza immensely profitable. Warren is a rich, rich man.”
Rachel laughed “Far-fetched? That’s a huge understatement. You must be mistaken.”
“Miss Harlan, understand this, I’m neither mistaken, nor crazy. It’s obvious that Warren has been hiding these facts from you. Most likely in an effort to shield you from a very ugly situation.”
“What situation?” She took another drag on her cigarette, and de Vries noticed that the slight tremble had returned to her hand.
“You must have heard something about the mob war that went on here in Seattle? The trid was full of it.”
She sat up straight. “Are you trying to tell me Warren was involved in all that bloodshed? You really are crazy.”
De Vries shook his head. “No.” He stood, and walked to the center of the room. “One of the reasons I’m here is that I’ve done some checking on your Warren D’imato. He wasn’t an easy nut to crack, because his self-extraction and cover were immaculately pulled off. The only advantage I had was in knowing both identities.”
De Vries shook his head again. “No, even though Fratellanza did phenomenal business during the recent mob infighting, Warren was not personally involved. In fact, he has tried to isolate himself from the family business for some time. His uncle and his father have permitted him to disguise his identity and live apart from it all. However, I would guess that he was trying to protect you from learning things that would endanger your life.”
De Vries leaned over, stubbed out his cigarette, and pulled the holopics from his pocket. “Warren attended a funeral yesterday. Were you aware of that?”
Rachel nodded, looking at the pics in de Vries’ hand as if be were holding a viper. As if she knew what was coming and wished to avoid any proof that what de Vries said was the truth.
“Here, take a look at this.” He handed her the top picture. one of Warren is his sharkskin suit.
Rachel took it, looked at it, and flipped it onto futon between them. “So Warren owns a nice suit, so what?”
De Vries showed her the rest of the pics, explaining each one. He finished up with a close-up of Marco D’imato smiling. “And this is his uncle, the man who had Warren kidnapped.”
Rachel shuddered visibly at the look of animal cunning on that ravaged face. “Is he like you?”
De Vries took the holopic back and placed the bundle of them in his pocket. “Yes, and no. I am simply a creature of the night. He is an abomination, even compared to my kind. He plans to do to Warren what he has done to himself. If he succeeds, Warren will no longer be human, will no longer be the man you love. Do you understand this?”
Rachel slumped over, and put her head in her hands.
“Miss Harlan?”
Without looking up, she said. “Just give me a damn minute, will you? This is a lot for me to absorb in a short amount of time”
“I wish I could give you the time you need, but time is the one thing we don’t have right now. By my calculations, we have until morning to extract Warren from the place in Hell’s Kitchen where he’s being held, or it will be too late. Once started, I understand the process is irreversible.”
Rachel looked up at him, and there were tears in her eyes. “Well, then, we must go and get him. What are we waiting for?”
De Vries smiled gently. “Slow down, Miss Harlan. It isn’t quite that simple. If it was, I’d have gotten Warren out of there and delivered him back safely without involving you in any way. No, the reason I am involving you is that the place is too well-defended. I could get inside, but there’s no way I’d get out again with Warren intact. It’s going to take a full team.”
Rachel thought for a moment, then said, “I know some runners who might be looking for work, but I could never afford to pay them.”
De Vries stood and turned from her, looking around the room
at all the pieces waiting to be finished. “I was hoping you would, and I’ve got a few contacts of my own here in Seattle. But for this job, we’ll need all the help we can get”
Rachel gave a sigh of great weariness. “This is all so unbelievable. Even if I could convince them to do it, they cost big nuyen. They’ve been known to do favors for a chummer, but not anything like this. I could never cop up the nuyen they’d want.”
De Vries turned back to her. “You just get them to agree. I’ll take care of the rest.”
8
The vampire may appear human, but the resemblance stops at the beast’s cold, clammy skin. Once infected, the human or metahuman victim of vampirism is dead. In the victim’s place is born a devil from the darkest heart of Creation, a thing reared in darkness and nurtured on innocent blood.
–Martin do Vries, Shadows at Noon, posted to Shadowland BBS, 24 May 2057
As Rachel stepped through the door to The Joy Club, her senses were assaulted. She came into the strobing black lights in a daze, the scent of incense choking her, and the music-scant decibels from being ear-shattering-hit her like a physical blow.
Just inside the entrance, to the right, the long bar stretched back into the darkness. To the left, Lindsey was doing her thing on the main stage, her high, elven features making her look a bit vulpine in the flashing colored lights. Lindsey was the only elf who danced, and she usually went home with the most nuyen. Norms of both sexes loved having her for lap dances, thinking they were getting something exotic as well as erotic.
Rachel knew that Lindsey was far from the best dancer there, but it seemed that few could resist that extra twinge of strange that accompanied her wide, sensuous mouth and platinum-tipped ears.
Screams from backstage attracted Rachel’s fogged attention for a moment. It was Mia.
Rachel frowned. Mia must need nuyen bad if she was going into her act this early in the week.
Mia sat, naked, in a chair center stage, her back arched, sweat dripping from her forehead as a young ork pushed the head of a large golden pin through her soft flesh. Mia whipped her head around, her shoulder-length black hair covering her face in sticky strands, her scream drowned out by the roar of twenty male voices, as blood welled around the pin.
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